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2 The Sunday Times of Malta JULY 23, 2017 technology GO staff celebrate having the fastest mobile network in Malta. Research shows GO has fastest mobile network Research carried out by Net Check GmbH, a leading, independent German firm specialising in performance testing of mobile networks (www.netcheck.de), has conclusively shown that GO has the best mobile network in Malta. The research, conducted nationwide, also revealed that GO’s mobile internet service is significantly faster than that of any of its competitors. “GO has been independently certified as having the fastest mobile internet in Malta” Net Check’s research covered three main areas: network coverage, voice quality, and data quality. Overall, GO came out on top, particularly in mobile internet, where GO’s network demonstrated a significant advantage over competing networks. In fact, in urban areas, GO’s 4G mobile internet network delivered an average download speed of 85.4 Mbps compared to the runner-up which had an average download speed of 56.8 Mbps. Outside of urban areas, GO delivered an average download speed of 79.0 Mbps, compared to the runner-up which had an average download speed of 55.0 Mbps. These results were based on 6,000 samples of mobile internet service and 2,000 samples of voice service taken simultaneously for each operator over a route covering more than 400 kilometres across all Malta and Gozo. Attila Keszeg, Chief Executive Officer at GO plc, said: “This is the first ever truly nationwide research carried out by a reputable company into the quality of the mobile networks in Malta and we are of course delighted that GO has been proven to be the best. The fact that GO’s 4G network performed significantly better than that of its competitors is due to the fact that GO’s network is the only one in the market where the radio base stations, on which the service depends, are all connected with fibre. “The fact that GO has been independently certified as having the fastest mobile internet in Malta motivates us to keep going and increase our momentum. Since December 2016, GO has During the event, GO’s Chief Commercial Officer, Kurt Camilleri also revealed the company’s new campaign and enhanced data offers for customers. been in a position to launch 4G+. This service will be activated as soon as the necessary frequency bands are allocated. Going forward, GO is determined to ensure we remain the fastest network across Malta – make no mistake, we are the fastest and we will remain the fastest.’’ Net Check’s report is available online on their website. The report details the various parameters that were included in the research including, among others, signal strength and coverage, call setup time, call success rates, speech quality, web page download speeds, and file upload and download speeds. The report also explains the weighting Net Check attributed to each category in order to determine the final overall network performance score. To celebrate being the fastest network in Malta, GO will also be offering all new or existing customers upgrading their tariff plan an additional 10GB of data over and above existing offers for the first 30 days. This offer will be valid until August 31, 2017.
feature JULY 23, 2017 The Sunday Times of Malta 3 Net Check benchmarks Malta’s mobile networks JOSIP KARLO CINDRIC Malta’s mobile networks To determine the quality of Maltese mobile networks, Net Check performed an extensive benchmark in May 2017. Over 40 valid measurement hours, covering more than 440 kilometers of drive testing within cities (approximately 75 per cent), connection roads (approximately 25 per cent) all over Malta, more than 8,000 samples for voice and data services have been collected. (2,000 voice calls, 6,000 data tests per network). The voice test set-up was as follows: A 120- second time window is applied to each voice test. During these 120 seconds, a call is being set up and held for 90 seconds. If the call is not established within the first 30 seconds of the time window, the call is considered failed. If it does not hold up the 90 seconds and drops, it is rated “dropped”. Two devices calling each other exchange so called “speech samples”, which are short, standardised voice sequences. Taking the source file as a reference, the use of the industry standard algorithm “POLQA” compares the source audio with the received audio and rank the received quality. A “mean opinion score” (MOS) is calculated in the range between one and five, one being the worst, five being the best grade. Based on experience, customers experiencing a “MOS” below 1.6 are unsatisfied with voice quality. “This is impressive: almost two times higher than the average data rate measured in Germany” When digging deeper into the data tests, they reveal that in Malta the average throughput rates in downlink hit the 81mbps mark. This is not only very competitive with other European countries, but puts them clearly over the top of countries like Germany, where the highest rate of multithread downloads in average achieved was 42.8mbps. This is impressive: almost two times higher than the average data rate measured in Germany (last public benchmark by Net Check). To find the differences, Net Check went one step further and tested “YouTube Live Video Streaming” as a service during the test drive. As in that kind of test not only throughput matters, this may provide more differentiation between the networks. By the use of the algorithm “vMOS”, which, in a similar manner to “POLQA” evaluates and scores the received video picture quality, Net Check is able to grade the performance for this test as well with the following outcome: the best average vMOS value of a excellent 4.21 is achieved by GO. This means, high quality streaming without any jerks or freezers. But, even the lowest average of 3.68, achieved by a different operator, still offers an acceptable user experience when it comes to live video streaming. The conclusion is that the nationwide benchmark in Malta, performed by Net Check, proves the availability of excellent mobile network services throughout the country. GO is competitive, or even better than the networks of most other European countries. Having statistically evaluated the results, GO beats the competition in Malta in a tight battle and wins the title “Best Mobile Network in Malta”. About Net Check Net Check is an international company focusing on delivering outstanding, high quality services to the mobile communication industry. Based in Berlin, Net Check specialises in providing network audits, benchmarks and optimisation services as well as rollout, upgrade and swap support to network operators, and equipment providers. Quality measurements provide information on the strengths and weaknesses of mobile networks. Among others, quality of speech and data transfers are being examined in urban, suburban as well as in remote areas. Technically oriented tests provide necessary information for radio network planning and are the basis for optimisation requirements. Customer oriented tests reflect the quality of the network as perceived by users and also serves a basis for marketing and management decisions. Net Check performs network audits with highly sophisticated test equipment and analysis tools. The use of the latest, state of the art equipment available on the market, assures the capabilities to cover a wide range of devices, applications and test scenarios in any network technology. Net Check also performs country-specific, annual press measurements. The results of these projects are published by local media partners. Always being on the edge of technical development in the markets, Net Check provides the most advanced methodologies and concepts to represent network capabilities and consumer experience. Pairing engineering expertise with statistically rigorous methodologies to design network performance tests and collect performance metrics on mobile networks which closely represent the consumer’s experience. Once the data is collected, sophisticated statistical techniques are applied to verify and validate the results. This approach ensures that all operators are measured equally, without bias, allowing Net Check to provide factual, real-world data which represents rather the real consumer experience than the statistical counters and performance metrics collected within the networks themselves. This effortful and comprehensive measurement specification sets the standard in the benchmarking industry and is a relevant and meaningful indicator of the quality of the local mobile network. Last but not least, the knowhow of highly qualified experts, means that measurements enjoy a high reputation by the media, the public and the network operators. Josip Karlo Cindric is Head of Benchmarking and Optimisation Projects at NET CHECK.
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